Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. The enduring charm of a dive bar where everyone feels like they might get laid.
In , I moved to Brooklyn from Oakland, leaving behind a cheap apartment and a nice boyfriend who patiently agreed to enter into a long-distance relationship while I went off to forge a career in magazines. Ah, yes. And in the immediate hours of my breakup devastation, I went back to Union Pool for the exact reason everyone knows to go to Union Pool.
But it was also one of the only bars around, and, as such, the grimy corner it occupied became a Williamsburg center at a time when Williamsburg was still very cool and hip and full of good-looking cool and hip people. The booze was cheap because it had to be. The bands were cool because bands were still cool then. Everyone knew that everyone else would go there, largely because there was nowhere much else to go.
This predated neighborhood favorites like the Woods and Home Sweet Home. Union Pool remained a horny Neverland. I personally have been going to Union Pool for the express purpose of getting laid without much effort since It was like Mufasa standing with Simba on Pride Rock and explaining that everything that the light touches would be his, except in this case Ada pointed to the Shadowland and said go forth.
And it was grody and great and plentiful. I am not alone. Some people go to find lovers; some people bring dates; and some people start the night with one date and leave with another arrangement β like my new hero, Rachel Bell, a Brooklyn writer with a Drake tattoo. She recently went to Union Pool for the first time, on a Tinder date. Who proceed to try to convince me to have a threesome with them. And I was high-key interested, honestly.
